Strange cuts of meat are strangely delicious. You just have to do them right.

I grew up spending summers in Quito with my dad’s family. Every June, I dreaded missing out on fun at the beach with my friends in Los Angeles. But by the time September came around, I’d be devastated to leave our boisterous Ecuadorian household, too. Not until I started cooking did I realize how hard it must have been for my Ecuadorian grandmother to feed so many people without a lot of money. When she did get beef, it was never steak. It was always an offcut that was kind of tough, or it required some skill to make good.

Photo by Wes Frazer

Gabrielle Quiñónez Denton, outside of Ox in Portland, OR

When we were opening Ox, my partner Greg Denton and I wanted to honor my South American roots in some way, so we started serving these cuts on our menu. Nose-to-tail cookery is nothing new, but it’s become much more en vogue over the last couple of years for adventurous diners, so here’s how we make those cuts my grandmother served (mostly) accessible.

Photo by Wes Frazer

Tongue: The last thing you want when you're eating is to feel another animal’s tongue on your tongue. We poach the tongue till tender, then peel the outer membrane off. We smoke it over mesquite and slice it very thinly, carpaccio-style, so it tastes like beefy ham.

Tripe: We do it Italian-style, and cook the tripe three times: first whole with aromatics in a court bouillon; then sliced and braised in tomato sauce, marjoram, anchovy, and chile flakes; and last warmed with more toasted garlic and incorporated into a surf-and-turf with poached octopus. Tripe is a tough sell for most people in Portland, but people go crazy for octopus!

Photo by Wes Frazer

Oxtail: People like it when they see it braised off the bone, but it’s a harder sell any other way, because you’re asking diners to pick around for the meat. So we make an oxtail terrine—we cook it till it sets up thick like jello, then bread those slices and fry them—doing the work for you.

Heart: If you ever eat beef heart, you know it’s offal—there’s no hiding it. We realized duck and lamb hearts are so mildly flavored that they can serve as gateway offal, so we took something that’s a little scary for some and paired it with comforting traditionally French coq au vin flavors.